e-skills reviews IT market

e-skills UK has published the latest issue of its influential e-skills Bulletin, a Quarterly Review of the ICT Labour Market.

Among its main findings are that skills shortages have increased slightly in some areas with sales and technical IT skills proving 'hardest to source for ICT firms' and nearly half of all people with an IT related degree do not go on to work in IT jobs.

e-skills UK and its Quarterly Reports are decision-influencers. e-skills UK is the Sector Skills Council for IT and Telecoms. It is an employer-led, not-for-profit organisation which describes its role as being dedicated to improving the competitiveness of UK businesses by improving the e-skills of the current and future workforce.

It has a seat on Work Permits Sector Skills Council and its reports and recommendations are contributory factors in Government decisions about what skills go on the skill shortage list for fast track visas.

Latest statistics

The e-skills Bulletin presents the latest statistics on the state of the ICT labour market collecting data from Government and private sector sources.

According to the latest report, the key data shows:

• Private sector investment in IT hardware/software fell during the first quarter;
  
• Employment figures within the ICT industry sectors are down on the last quarter and a corresponding rise was registered in redundancy and unemployment rates;
  
• A small increase in the number of vacancies for both permanent and contract ICT staff in the first quarter;
  
• Advertising for ICT staff registered by recruitment agencies declined following a brief increase in the first two months of the year;
  
• Telecommunications companies appear more optimistic about recruiting staff;
  
• Rates of pay were down on the previous quarter;
  
• Skills shortages have increased slightly in some areas with sales and technical IT skills proving hardest to source for ICT firms;
  
• Levels of job-related training and education provision are continuing to decline;
  
• 40 per cent of workers with IT related degrees have not taken up/are not working in IT jobs.

Sector Skills Councils

The e-skills' IT industry board comprises senior representatives from IBM UK; Hewlett Packard; Smart421; Microsoft; Fujitsu; Dell; Oracle; EDS and Accenture.

Earlier this year e-skills UK became one of the first two fully-licensed Sector Skills Councils (SSCs) in the UK with responsibility for the IT, Telecoms and Contact Centre sectors.

At a ceremony held in London in April, Secretary of State for Education, Charles Clarke, officially granted e-skills UK a five-year licence to join the Skills for Business network, to act on the skills needs of employers and drive productivity within these sectors. Additionally, e-skills UK has responsibility for developing the IT User Skills of the entire workforce across all industries.

Work Permits e-skills has a place on the ITCE Sector Advisory Panel on work permits, which makes recommendations to the Government about skill shortages. e-skills has played an influential role in this process to date and the minutes of the Sector Panel meeting in February 2003 show that the Panel considered e-skills UK's paper 'The Provision of Advisory Services to Aid Identification of ICT Occupations Requiring Tier 1 Status', which put forward a methodology for assessing shortages in the IT industry.

At the time, e-skills UK agreed that it would put forward a recommendation after applying the methodology as to what occupations were in shortage. Panel members would consider the recommendation and, after an agreement was reached Work Permits would take an informed decision as to what would be placed on the shortage occupation list.

The position now is that the ITCE Sector Advisory Panel has agreed that Work Permits and the DTI should commission an independent assessment of the current state of the IT labour market in the UK, including the use of work permits. The terms of reference, and timescale, for the study are currently being drawn up and will take account of the views of Panel members who represent interested parties in the sector.

Alongside this, according to a statement issued by the Panel, Work Permits will provide regular, detailed reports to the Panel on efforts to ensure that work permits are being issued and used correctly and to investigate instances of alleged abuse of the work permit arrangements. Both the study and the reports will aid understanding of how the arrangements are operating in the ITCE sector so that the Panel are well placed to advise Work Permits on the development and implementation of work permit policy in relation to this sector.

Work Permits (UK) and the DTI are also looking at whether the membership of the Panel needs to be reviewed to ensure that the interests of all parties are fully and continually represented.